Power control of servers using advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI) states

Abstract

A method of managing power consumption by a plurality of blade servers within a processing system. The speed of at least one of the plurality of blade servers is reduced in response to the processing system reaching a power or thermal threshold. At least one of the plurality of blade servers is identified as not being critical to maintain in a working state and the critical blade server is put in a sleep state. A satellite management controller may control blade server power consumption and heat generation in various ways that combine processor speed-stepping and control of processor sleep states. Known sleep states save more power than speed-stepping by turning off the processor and / or volatile memory. The processor speed and sleep-states of at least one non-critical blade server, and optionally the processor speed of a critical processor, may be changed in order to control the power consumption below a power threshold or control the temperature below a thermal threshold.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to power management in a computer system having multiple devices, such as in a rack-based server system or data center.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]Multiple servers and other computer hardware are often consolidated into a centralized data center. Servers in a data center may be mounted in a rack to conserve space and place the servers and infrastructure within easy reach of an administrator. The IBM eServer BLADECENTER is one example of a compact server arrangement (IBM and BLADECENTER are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.).[0005]When multiple servers and other computing hardware are consolidated, power to the servers must be carefully monitored and controlled. Power consumption affects many aspects of operating a data center, such as the costs of operating the servers, the heat generated by the servers, and the performance a...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention provides a method for managing the power consumption of multiple blade servers in a processing system. The method includes identifying which blade servers are not critical to maintain in a working state and putting them in a sleep state if the processing system reaches a thermal or power threshold. This can be done by sending a message to the operating system or the baseboard management controller to put the blade server in a sleep state. The sleep state can be a standby state or a hibernation state, depending on the desired power consumption. The method allows for finer adjustments in power consumption and temperature control by changing the processor speed and sleep state of the non-critical blade servers. The invention also includes a computer program product and a power-controlled processing system.

Problems solved by technology

Although both of these sleep states save power by turning off the processor, the “hibernation” state consumes less power because it also turns off the volatile memory.

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